Double Fantasy (Stripped Down)

by

John Lennon and Yoko Ono

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It's been impossible to listen to this album separate from the context of Lennon's death for the past 30 years, and in many ways it still is. But if the "Stripped Down" version doesn't exactly reclaim the album (it is, after all, a collection of pop songs meant as a snapshot in time, not the valedictory artistic statement fate turned it into), the warmth and immediacy of the remix definitely unyokes it from the time and place of it's making and turns it into an album for the ages. For me, it's less about what's missing here, or what's been changed there, but that the whole overall feel of the album, and specifically the presence of Lennon's voice, is more direct and impactful. So, if it's not a revelatory rediscovery of the music, it's definitely the better version of the album, and the one I'll be listening to.

Appreciating this remixing of DOUBLE FANTASY is a lot easier to do if you were pre-disposed to liking the original album in the first place. With all due respect to John Lennon and Yoko Ono, I never did. My first reaction when it came out (a mere three weeks before Lennon's horrible murder) was, "this guy has a lot of gall trashing Paul McCartney for sounding syrupy." I don't know why he decided to put these songs out instead of the far better ones that eventually ended up on the posthumous MILK AND HONEY four years later, but with the exceptions of "Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)," "I'm Losing You" and "Woman," nothing Lennon released on DOUBLE FANTASY is even close to having the muscle, grit or smarts of his best songs, loud OR soft. Had he been spared death and subsequently released in final form the songs that appeared on MILK AND HONEY, I suspect most listeners and fans would have relegated DOUBLE FANTASY to a warm-up after almost 5 years out of the spotlight and given more praise to "I Don't Wanna Face It, "Grow Old With Me" and "Nobody Told Me," all much, much better songs than the bulk of what Lennon chose for DOUBLE FANTASY. The tragedy that happened after DF's release added extra gravitas to a parcel of second-rate songs.

So, I put my bias on the table, straight up. Does the stripping down of the DOUBLE FANTASY tracks help redress the strength of the material at all? Wellll....sort of. It definetely doesn't hurt the aforementioned tracks, but they were pretty good to start with. It also does benefit "(Just Like) Starting Over," one of Lennon's most overrated songs, but it doesn't really help "Cleanup Time," a song only marginally better than Paul and Linda McCartney's "Cook Of The House." In that instance "polishing waste matter" is about what happens here. And "Watching The Wheels," was Lennon at his most self-defensive...I never could hear this song without thinking that he sent out 2 conflicting messages with it: "Leave me alone, but listen to me."

The reason I have so little to say about what Yoko Ono has on DOUBLE FANTASY is NOT because I don't think her songs are worth mentioning. On the contrary, what carries DOUBLE FANTASY along, in any incarnation, are HER songs. I know, I know, sacriledge, but "Kiss, Kiss, Kiss," "I'm Moving On" and "Hard Times Are Over" all have a verve and bite that most of Lennon's songs here don't. Ono will probably never get a fair hearing from Lennon partisans, and in some cases prior to DF the dislike of her offerings was warranted, but not this time. If the intention of John and Yoko was to show that she really was pretty good, it works; it's just too bad that doing so was at Lennon's expense.

I know I'm going to get creamed for all I've said here in the responses, but I stand by every word. John Lennon proved by the material that was released after the world lost him that he still had the spark, so why he chose many of the songs on DOUBLE FANTASY instead of what he'd stockpiled for later will forever be a mystery.